


Sweetling

by darkstark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 09:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4740617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkstark/pseuds/darkstark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How I wanted to hate you, sweetling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweetling

**Author's Note:**

> Although this is not my first attempt at fanfiction, it is the first one in the world of ASOIAF. I hope you enjoy it! :)

How I wanted to hate you, sweetling. How I wanted to hate your pretty little face and your pretty little dreams.

It seemed easy at first. You had your mother’s beauty, same bright blue eyes and auburn hair, a true Tully. But only by half. You had the Stark blood in you too, and not just by name. Your father’s chivalry and sense of honour was there too, in your voice, in your gestures. And for that I thought I could mock you in my thoughts, just like I did with that fool, Ned. 

But it was more than that, really. I wanted to hate you for the mother that you had, and for the gift your uncle once gave me. I wanted to hate your rank and title, how easy everything had come to you and how sure you were of yourself in this life. I wanted to hate you for your rosy dreams too, your love for songs of romance and chivalry, for your unshaken belief that the world is good, that good things happen to those who deserve them and the wicked ones always get punished. There was a part of me that thought I would enjoy seeing those dreams of yours shattered, that the look on your face when you discovered the truth of the world, its bottomless malice and ugliness, would make my heart swell with satisfaction. There was a part of me, the ghost of a little boy I had killed so long ago, who thought he would be appeased with your sudden despair. 

 

I thought I could, and I thought I wanted to. But when it came to pass, and your blue eyes turned red from tears, and your silky white skin blossomed with blue and purple flowers, there was no joy there for me, no satisfaction. I was there only for the start of it. Of the rest of it I heard from afar, but even of what I didn’t hear I could be certain. The lions were trying to turn their little wolf into a lamb. Oh, how they would like that.

I thought I could hate you again that night you came aboard my ship, when your eyes filled with horror at the sight of your knight in motley being given a bolt in the heart instead of gold in the hand. I thought I could hate your surprise – how could anything like this surprise you anymore? But some part of me thought, she made it this far, she had the guts to go through with this plan, she had the strength to keep it secret. And in your eyes I saw those of your mother’s, dead not so long ago, and wondered if hers were so full of fear when she knew the end had come.

The last time I thought I could hate you was when you dyed your hair. What was there to save you from my indiference when your likeness to the woman that had once been my Queen of Love and Beauty disappeared? And yet, when the auburn was lost under the dark brown and you looked more like a Stark than ever, I had to admit that the beauty was not your mother’s, but all yours.

 

It all became harder after that. The things I should have found irritating, your meekness with your aunt, your patience with her sickly boy, they only seemed to peak my interest. Others might have taken them for weakness, but I thought I could see them for what they were; your armour, your smoke and mirrors. It was the art of survival. I became certain the day I killed your kin. You cried so prettily that day. Your sobs and trembles as you told your little story told me all: You were a diamond in the rough.

There are times now that I have to laugh, when I look at you and remember how much I had hoped to hate you. The years and my tutelage have been your boon. You are beautiful like your mother, the blue of your eyes clear and bright, the paleness of your skin delicate like porcelain, your hair a joyous fire once again. And yet you are now even more beautiful than she was, in ways that she could never be. It is in the stillness of your delicate features, in the invisible curl of your small mouth when something pleases you. But mostly it is in the softness of your voice when you say the most terrible things, and in the way your hands are always clean and steady, despite all the things they’ve done. I’ve taught you well.

There is no one else I would prefer to be my student, my daughter, my right hand, my lover. No one that could be my Queen of Love and Beauty, not even your mother. There is less and less of her in your features every day that passes, and yet that makes you all the more beguiling. You know all this, for all the pains I take to conceal it. You know it from the way you’re still standing strong when others have perished. You know it from the way my hands dig in your soft flesh in the dead of night, and from the secrets that I whisper in your ear.

You like to think that you are growing smarter, stronger. That your cold calculation is close to mine. It’s not a lie. What you like to think the most though is that you are now the one in control, the one of two to wield the power. The puppeteer moving the strings. You think I’m at the mercy of your lemon-scented kisses, of the perfection of my own creation. I want to say that I’m not, that I can still detach myself from you enough, though these days our minds seem to operate as one more often than not. Perhaps you have the truth of it more than I would care to show, more than I would ever admit. For your sake and mine, I hope it’s not true. But even if it is, I’ll let it be. 

Because, sweetling, you’re the one I hate the least.


End file.
